US senator Jim DeMint responds to Vladimir Putin’s NYT op-ed: Thank you, Mr. Putin
But former South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint respectfully disagrees with Mr. Putin, and does what the US President Barack Obama should have done – writes an answer to Vladimir Putin, a good example of the American exceptionalism.
He writes that "America is an exceptional nation – that, like no other, not just now but in history – because it is dedicated to the universal principle of human liberty." Let’s recall the US history – what happened to the indigenous populations that lived in America before Christopher Columbus discovered the land? Do we need to mention about numerous ghettos and reservation for American Indians? And what about slavery that was abolished only in 1865 when the 13th amendment to the US constitution abolishing slavery was adopted? (Actually,
Mr. DeMint volunteers to school Mr. Putin and give him a history lesson peppered with thinly-veiled personal jabs and ridicule.
"President Obama has been very busy and has not properly responded to you to explain the nature and origin of American exceptionalism," Mr. DeMint writes. "I am happy to explain the basic facts."
"When we helped liberate the western half of Europe, we left it democratic and free to decide its own fate," he writes. "The wall that existed for decades dividing Berlin — and the Iron Curtain that stretched from Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic — were not there to keep out westerners, but to keep those born in the east from escaping to freedom. But you must know this history well, since you were a KGB agent in Germany at the time."
The letter sparked heated debates in the media and in the Internet, with the majority mentioning numerous wars that the US led in the Middle East, with the Obamacare policy, recent revelations about the NSA surveillance program, and data protection act.
For instance, user "Jim Wolfe" writes that the USA "used to be exceptional. I am not so sure today. Corrupt government and a debt we cannot pay. Way too many things taking away from when we were the greatest country on earth."
Internet user "simplulo" believes that the American nation "was exceptional, but now we have deviated from those principles of human rights. This has resulted in such absurd contradictions as a pyramid-scheme Social Security system, constant foreign wars, Russia giving asylum to an American whistle-blower, and the "Land of the Free" having the world's highest incarceration rate."
Internet user "Regula" addresses straight to Mr. DeMint, saying that "if the US used its supposed exceptionalism to be the best in a genuine way, not just the most belligerent and destructive nation on this planet, many other countries including Russia, China and Iran could be way more open and free. But they have to defend against constant intervention and subversion from the US who can't make its exceptional money anymore in any other way than with war and destabilization of other nations' social efforts and economy to cause revolutions and civil wars to create a cause to invade, attack and destroy so US companies can make money from other nations' destruction."
It is strange that the US senator writes a letter to the Russian President, but will he have a time to write a letter or at least tweet to the Head of the Russian State Duma International Affairs Committee Alexei Pushkov, who also commented on the American exceptionalism, saying that "the USA should part with the notion of American exceptionalism. It contradicts the principles of equal rights and smells of political racism."
Voice of Russia